


Lesbian Space Thieves

by Vengeful_Authoress



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Lesbians in Space, Science Fiction, Theft, lesbian space thieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vengeful_Authoress/pseuds/Vengeful_Authoress
Summary: L Stol and Iza Pagana are the most notorious thieves in the entire solar system and the most hunted. One day, L decided to steal from the president's daughter, but rather than getting away with any goods, she met Iza, the beautiful President-To-Be. She convinced Iza to run away with her, and they've been traveling the solar system ever since though they are hunted by the Interplanetary Police.
This is a one-shot written in preparation for the start of the actual novel. If there is enough interest, perhaps I will start uploading chapters of the actual novel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is an original work, all characters owned by me. The story is a one-shot I wrote while getting ready for National Novel Writing Month. If there is enough interest, I might start posting chapters of the actual Lesbian Space Thieves novel.

“Did you hear that?”

“Sorry, that was me,” I answered, lying on my back with my head crammed into the space between the steering console and the floor. The screwdriver stuffed in my mouth made my words sound like they were trying to walk through glue. “I accidentally poked a hole in the coolant line, so you’re going to be hearing a strange hissing sound until I get it fixed.”

Fixed with duct tape. But I didn’t tell her that, because Iza didn’t like to hear that our little spaceship was being held together by such a primitive tool.

“No, not that,” Iza said. “I thought I heard a thud in our storage bay.”

I pulled my head out so quickly that I almost cracked my skull open on the sharp edge of the console. “What? That’s impossible. We’re in the middle of an empty space pocket, days away from Ulfius.”

“I know what I heard.” She unfolded herself from her armchair, moving with the grace of a ballroom dancer, and crept over to me, hand outstretched to help me rise. I tucked the screwdriver into the pocket of my jacket as I took it, and she pulled me to my feet, keeping hold of my hand as we listened for another sound.

The thud made me jump, and I crushed Iza’s slim fingers as my hand clenched. “Maybe it’s just the–”

“Don’t say it’s the ghost,” she interrupted, shooting me a glare.

I snapped my mouth shut.

Iza leaned in and pressed her mouth against my ear. “L…” she began.

“I know,” I hissed. All our stolen cargo – crates full of technology not yet released to the public market – was in the storage bay.

“So if there’s somebody in there…”

“Then we have a problem.”

Iza opened the metal chest that was against the wall, rooting around inside until she came up with a baton that was about the length of her forearm. When she spun it around, it expanded into a staff as tall as she was. She tossed something else at me, and I snatched it out of the air, uncurling my fingers to reveal the handle of my light-ion blade. I tucked the black hilt into my empty pocket.

Iza snapped her staff up, holding it tight across her back, and followed me across the control room. Our boots were silent on the metal floor, and I paused at the door to the cargo bay, pressing my ear up against it to try to hear inside, but all I could make out was the humming of the ship’s engines. I glanced at Iza and shook my head. Her fingers tightened on her staff in response, her brown knuckles turning white.

She gave me a determined nod. I turned off the lights, so the glow wouldn’t leech into the next room, pressed the button on the wall, and the door slid open. We kept all our gears and hinges well oiled, so that everything worked without a sound. Our cargo bay was pitch black, but we’d spent months wandering around blind, and we each knew the layout by heart. We never changed anything inside. That way, if we were ever boarded by the law, we could disappear into the labyrinth of crates in a second.

A second thump echoed around us. I slipped my hand into my pocket and gripped the handle of my knife as I crept towards the stairs. I could feel Iza’s presence behind me like a comforting weight. We’d done this so many times before, gone on so many missions together, that this was second nature to us; we could practically read each other’s minds. There were ten stairs down to the cargo bay floor, and at the bottom, I stopped to listen again. Iza pressed up against me, radiating heat even through my jacket, and her breath tickled my ear. “Anything?”

“Shh.”

A rustling sound slithered over to us from the right, so I moved in that direction, pulling my knife out and spinning it over and over in my fingers. Someone cursed in the darkness, and then a softly glowing circle of light burst into existence, a man’s head and shoulders inside of it, bent over one of our crates full of stolen goods, which had been knocked over and was spilling its silver and shining guts across the floor. The intruder was turned away from us, and I lunged forward without thinking, my hand snapping out. My fingers wrapped around his low collar, and I threw him back, towards Iza and away from the box.

He let out a shout of pain and surprise when he hit the ground, rolling away awkwardly until he came to a stop, face pressed into the floor, the glowing Gallion Sphere rolling away from his hand. Iza stepped forward and pointed her staff at him, its end glowing orange. “Who are you?” she demanded, and I grinned. I was most attracted to her when she was threatening other people.

The stranger looked up cautiously. He was our age, his gold streaked hair tumbling across his face. His dark grey eyes matched the color of our floor, and he had high, sharp cheekbones that turned his face into a portrait of an ancient-day hero.

I cursed, long and hard, as Iza stepped back in shock and took her staff away. “Jacques?” she asked. “What the hell?”

Jacques had been Iza’s fiancé until I’d come along and swept her away with my crackling smile, dashing good looks, and dangerous sense of adventure.

“I’ve come to take you home,” Jacques said. He didn’t try to stand.

“Jacques, it’s been five months. I’m not going back.”

“This is just a phase,” he insisted. “Just a crazy, rebellious phase.”

“It’s not a phase. Jacques, I can’t take my father’s place. I can’t rule our people. I’m not cut out for it.”

“I’ll help you,” he said. “Our combined families will be able to do anything. In time, you’ll get over your fears and…whatever this is.”

His eyes flicked towards me, and I could tell he wasn’t just talking about her criminal pursuits. He was also talking about her relationship with me. I curled my lip up in a snarl and pressed the button on my knife. The six-inch blade hummed to life, glowing blue, and I spun it around once before making it disappear again. Jacques flinched.

“Get up,” Iza ordered, sounding exasperated. “And L, stop antagonizing him.”

I folded my arms across my chest and huffed, though my glare didn’t drop from my face. Jacques got to his feet with slow, careful motions, and he made sure to keep several feet of space between him and us. He held up his hands as if to show that he meant us no harm. I didn’t believe him.

“Iza, your father has sent agents of the Interplanetary Police after you,” Jacques said, his face earnest. “They’re not tasked with bringing you home. Their mission is to arrest you and escort you to the Box.” He held out his hand to Iza. “If you come back with me, maybe I can convince your father to be lenient with you.”

“No,” Iza replied. Her grip on her staff tightened, and the orange glow intensified. “Now get off my ship before I toss you out the airlock.”

Jacques narrowed his eyes at her. “You wouldn’t.

“She wouldn’t, but I would,” I interrupted Iza, stalking forward and grabbing a fistful of his leather jacket. He had a solid six inches of height on me, but that didn’t stop me from dragging him towards the back of the cargo bay, my steps purposeful while his stumbled and bumped in the dark. Iza hurried after us, lighting the way with Jacques’ discarded sphere.

“You can’t,” Jacques protested, pulling at my fingers. “That’s murder.”

“We’re already wanted for breaking and entering and armed robbery, so what’s one more charge?” I quipped.

“L, stop,” Iza said. “He’s more useful to us as a hostage.”

She had a point. I pulled out my head-long charge, jerking Jacques to a stop along with me, and turned around. “Fine. We’ll tie him up in the pilot’s room.”

A look of relief fell over Jacques face, and his shoulders slumped. Iza and I started back across the storage bay side by side, my fist still wrapped up in Jacques’ shirt. I shoved him into the extra chair that sat in the corner as Iza dug out our magnetic cuffs. She clapped one silver circle around Jacques’ wrist and the other around the arm of the chair, and when she pressed the button on the side, a low hum began, and the two bands snapped together, held there by the most powerful magnets created.

“Are these really necessary?” Jacques asked, rattling his wrist.

“Yes,” I snapped. I grabbed Iza’s hand and pulled her to the far end of the room. I kept my voice low and leaned in so she would be able to hear me properly. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work faster.”

Iza glared at me. “You watch him. I’m going to clean up the crate that he spilled.”

“Am I allowed to punch him?”

“No, L,” she said, sighing in exasperation.

My lips drooped down into a pout, but I nodded in agreement. Iza left, slamming the door to the storage bay a little harder than necessary. I spun around slowly, the heel of my boot sliding on the floor, until I was scowling at Jacques. I perched on the end of the computer console and crossed my arms.

“What are you really doing here?” I demanded.

“I told you, I’m here to take Iza home,” he said. I’d always hated his simpering, sincere voice. It sounded so fake, like he was trying too hard to make people believe him.

“Let me guess,” I said, voice cold as ice. “You’ve got a tracker on you and are sending little pings back to an Interplanetary Police ship, so that they can track us down and arrest us.”

“I swear I’m clean,” he promised. “You can search me, if you want.”

I stalked over to him and patted him down, pulling the lapels of his navy blue jacket to the side so I could run my fingers over the seams, and slipped my hand into all of his pockets. Then I took a few bits of wire, a magnet, and half of a discarded circuit board from my pockets, twisting everything together until I had a makeshift radio wave detector. I swept the tiny device past him several times, but it stayed still in my palm, so I turned my back on Jacques and walked away.

I dropped to my knees before the dashboard, the metal paneling still pulled open so I could reach the guts of the machinery. I lay down on my back and wriggled inside, wires brushing my cheeks. My kit, which contained a roll of duct tape, several different sized screwdrivers and wrenches, a pen-sized laser cutter, and a package of breath mints, was still scattered across the cramped floor space. Sometimes I got hungry, and Iza had banned me from eating while doing mechanical repairs after I’d accidentally gotten bread crumbs into the combustion part of the engine, and our ship almost blew up.

“Before you came along, she loved me,” Jacques said after a few minutes, startling me. I pulled my head out from beneath the dashboard and sat up to stare at him. “Why does she love you more than me?”

“Because I don’t expect her to be something she’s not,” I answered, my words dripping with icicles.

“What exactly am I expecting Iza to be?” Jacques demanded. He pulled at the cuffs binding him to the chair.

“Let’s make a list, shall we?” I stood and started to pace across the floor in front of him, ticking off the items on my fingers. “You want her to be this impossibly perfect woman. You want her to speak three languages and play five instruments perfectly. She’s supposed to speak impeccably and never lose her temper, and she’s supposed to know the answer to everything. You want her to wear dresses with her back straight and her head held high, and you want her to smile prettily.”

“I don’t–”

I wasn’t finished. “You want her to care about everything you care about and nothing else, and you want her to agree with you. You want her to be exactly like her father: powerful, cold, and ruthless.”

“None of that is true,” Jacques said. His eyes narrowed, and his hands clenched into fists.

“All of it is true. You just don’t want to see it. Why do you think she left, Jacques? She couldn’t bear the pressure you were putting on her.”

“Then you’re doing the same thing.” Jacques voice took on a bit of a hysterical edge, as if he were desperate to prove to himself that all my words were lies. “You pressured her into leaving with you. You forced her to become a thief.”

I shook my head. “I gave her the choice. I asked her if she wanted to run away with me, and I told her to meet me in the shipyard in two days if she wanted. I gave her time to think, and I told her I’d understand if she didn’t show.”

Jacques fell silent.

I stopped pacing and stuffed a hand through my shock of black hair, making the strands stick up even higher than usual. I dropped into a crouch and slid back underneath the computer console just as Iza stepped through the door.

“Oh good, he’s not dead,” she said.

“I restrained myself for you,” I replied, a screwdriver in one hand and a piece of duct tape stuck to a finger. The coolant line was still giving me trouble. The hole just didn’t want to seal no matter how many layers of silver tape I smothered it in.

“I’m so glad. That’s not duct tape I see, is it?”

I hesitated and slid the roll deeper into the shadows. “No. The jackass is clean. No bugs.”

“I have a name,” Jacques interjected, whining.

“I know. It’s jackass.”

“L,” Iza warned.

I slapped one last piece of duct tape onto the broken coolant line, and it stuck, so I sat back up, brushing my hands off. Iza stood in the center of the room, hands on her hips, and my breath caught for a moment just like it always did when I saw her. The white overhead lights glinted off the gold streaks in her brown hair, which was bound up in a curly bun. Her skin reminded me of the trees that marched around the 1st Circle, the richest district in Ulfius City, and she had golden eyes, just like those of a hawk.

I grinned up at her, and her answering smile lit up the room.

An alarm burst to life, startling me, and one of the lights on the computer screen began to flash red. A panicked expression fell over Iza’s face – one that I was sure mimicked mine – and we both scrambled towards the console, my boots slipping a little. Iza’s fingers flew across the keyboards, first turning off the blaring siren and then pulling up the cause onto the largest screen. A map of the surrounding system popped up, our location blinking green and the source of the trigger flashing red off to the right. With a couple more key strokes, Iza found its identification specs.

“Fuck,” she groaned.

I leaned in closer to get a better look and repeated her expletive in a much more aggressive tone. The flashing red light belonged to an Interplanetary Police cruiser, pursuant class. It looked like there was only one of them, but it was possible that an entire fleet was waiting just out of range, ready to hyper jump in at the cruiser’s signal.

“They’re locked onto us,” Iza said, her stiff fingers still jumping over the keys, even though it was too late to engage our cloaking device.

I threw myself into the pilot’s seat and grabbed the joysticks, the leather grips long since molded to my hands. “Hold onto something,” I warned through gritted teeth, and then I jammed the accelerator forward, spinning it in my hand at the same time so that our little spaceship shot off to the right like a laser from a gun. Jacques cried out in shock as his chair toppled over.

“They’re coming after us,” Iza said. “Can we jackrabbit?”

I shook my head, brow furrowed as I sent the ship hurtling through space. “Not without a proper coolant line. We risk blowing something important.”

“Where the hell did they come from?” Iza yelled over her shoulder at Jacques, though her eyes kept tracking the movement of the police cruiser.

“He must’ve left a bug in the storage room before we found him.”

We were about twenty clicks from a thick asteroid belt. If I could get us in there, I could lose our pursuers. I just needed five minutes. Five minutes without mechanical failure. Five minutes without the cruiser doing anything unexpected. And five minutes without another ship hyper jumping into range.

I tried hard to it shove into a box, but the nagging thought that I wouldn’t get five minutes refused to disappear.

“Iza, I need more speed,” I said. I had the accelerator pushed as far forward as possible, but the flashing red dot was still inching closer and closer.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Dump the dead weight?”

“That’s not going to help, and you know it.”

“Yes, please don’t dump me,” Jacques added, but we both ignored him.

“Can we make a jump?” Iza asked. Her fingers were still flickering across the keyboard as if she could somehow find a way to go ghost even though the cruiser was already locked onto us.

“I told you, the coolant line is fucked!” I snapped, harsher than intended. “I just need enough time to get into the asteroids.”

Iza gasped, eyes widening with amazed surprise. “God, we’re such idiots! We have one more smoke pod leftover from our last mission!”

I took my eyes off the screens just long enough to glance over at her and grin. “Release it!”

Iza’s long fingers keyed up the code, and the pod’s launch screen appeared on the computer she was using, but before she could finish initiating it, a bright, white light split the black space. I cranked back on the brakes, and the ship came to a shuddering halt. We stared at the screens and out the windshield, and Iza reached over and took my hand, unwrapping it from around the controls.

An Interplanetary Police base ship floated in front of us, green and white lights spinning so quickly it began to make me nauseous. Arrayed around it in, encircling us completely, was an entire fleet of cruisers and bruisers.

“Prepare to be boarded,” a voice blared, crackling with static. “Do not try to flee.”

One of the cruisers, sleeker and newer than all the rest, broke away and came towards us, circling towards the back of our ship to approach the loading bay and airlock.

“What do you want to do?” I asked Iza.

Her hand tightened around mine, and she looked over at me with calm eyes. We turned away from console, stepping over Jacques on our way to the storage bay. The little ship shook as the cruiser attached itself to the outer door and sealed the airlock.

And then we waited. Fingers interlocked. Whatever came next, we would face it together. Just like we always did.


End file.
